Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Nurse?

Am I strong enough to withstand the job’s physical demands?

Nurses who work in hospitals need a certain amount of strength and stamina to help lift patients and survive long hours and occasional night shifts. Working three 12-hour shifts a week in the cardiac step-down unit at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, Nicole Lehr, RN, BSN, says her schedule “can be a little straining on the body, but you have four days to rest and adjust.” Krejci notes that many new technologies and lifting techniques help decrease the amount of physical stress nurses experience. And many nursing jobs – such as those in call centers and community health clinics – are less physically demanding to begin with.

Would You Survive Your 1st Year as a Nurse?

1. What is most important to you?

Making money
Saving lives
Getting great benefits
Being happy
Making a difference

Although people considering careers in nursing come from all walks of life, many potential nurses share a surprisingly common set of questions and concerns, such as “Can I get into nursing school?” and “Am I crazy to become a nurse at my age?” Two nurses and a nursing professor address wannabe nurses’ frequently asked questions.

Am I too squeamish?

If you have to ask, job shadow a nurse for a day or sign up for a “future nurses” camp like the one offered at Marquette’s College of Nursing. How you react to TV medical dramas can also be a clue as to whether you’re cut out for nursing. “If you watch ‘ER’ and say, ‘oh, my gosh, that looks terrible,’ then nursing is probably not for you,” Lehr says. On the other hand, you don’t have to adore working amid blood and guts, either. “There are so many different specialties within nursing where you can avoid that cliche of hospital blood everywhere,” she says. In fact, some of Lehr’s fellow nursing students fainted the first time they were exposed to lots of blood during training. “They stayed with [nursing school] and did just fine,” she says.

Although people considering careers in nursing come from all walks of life, many potential nurses share a surprisingly common set of questions and concerns, such as “Can I get into nursing school?” and “Am I crazy to become a nurse at my age?” Two nurses and a nursing professor address wannabe nurses’ frequently asked questions.

Does the profession afford enough respect?

“I think sometimes people still do not understand that nursing is an autonomous, independent profession,” Krejci says. “Sometimes people misperceive nursing and don’t understand the professional nature of nursing.” Before becoming a nurse, Lehr worried that the profession’s reputation was unglamorous and that “society looks at nursing as grunt work.” Lehr’s concerns have proved to be largely unfounded, and she says she gets only positive feedback when she tells people she’s a nurse. The rewards she derives are also greater than she expected. “I get rewarded by helping people,” she says. “Making a little sick child smile makes it all worthwhile.”